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Saturday, February 9, 2013

Living on $4 a Day

In keeping with my intent to make Saturday's a day for something a little different from the Monday to Friday meandering of this blog, unless distracted by some event such as the Hui last weekend, today's something is the Lenten message of the Presiding Bishop of TEC.

Lent is the ancient season of preparation. Preparation for Baptism at the Easter Vigil and it’s a season of solidarity with those who are being formed to be disciples of Jesus and missionaries in God’s mission.

We form people in a sense that God dreams of a healed world, a world restored to peace with justice, and some of the ancient images of that healed world are those of the prophets. One of the famous ones from Isaiah is an image of people having a picnic on a mountainside, enjoying rich food and well-aged wine. That image of being well-fed is particularly poignant in a world like ours where so many go hungry.

Lent is a time when we pray, when we fast, when we study, when we give alms. It’s a time of solidarity and it is particularly a time to be in solidarity with the least of these.

As you prepare for your Lenten season and your Lenten discipline, I’d encourage you to think about consciousness in eating. That’s really more what fasting is about than giving up chocolate. Being conscious of what you eat, standing in solidarity with those who are hungry, whether it is for food, or shelter, or peace, or dignity, or recognition, or for love.

When we stand in solidarity in terms of eating, we might consider what we are eating and how we are eating it and with whom we are eating, and I’d invite you to consider some of the challenges that are around us. Many leaders in this United States part of the church have engaged in an act of solidarity with the poor by trying to live on a food stamp budget for a week. That’s about $4 a person per day. And it’s very, very difficult to find adequate calories and reasonably nutritious food for that kind of a budget. But it would be an act of solidarity with those who do go without every day and every week. An act of solidarity like that might increase your consciousness about those who go hungry, it might increase your own consciousness about what you eat, and it might provide an opportunity to share some of your largesse, some of what you save from that kind of eating with those who go without.

The violence in our country, the violence around the world is most often an act in response to those who don’t have enough. Those who are hungry, those who ache for recognition and dignity, those who struggle for peace.

Your and my preparation for the great Easter festival can be an act of solidarity with the least of these. As you engage this Lent, I would encourage you to pray, to fast, to act in solidarity with those who go without. Learn more, give alms, share what you have. Be conscious about what you eat.

A blessed, blessed Lent this year.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

"The violence in our country, the violence around the world is most often an act in response to those who don’t have enough. Those who are hungry, those who ache for recognition and dignity, those who struggle for peace."

“Wow-this from a church with the highest percentage of private-school educated members and clergy in the US after the Quakers. Paternalist (maternalist) nonsense.Lady Bountiful in vestments.”—Turnip Ghost

It’s precisely because we Episcopalians are relatively privileged that it’s important to be reminded that “preparation for the great Easter festival can be an act of solidarity with the least of these…to pray, to fast, to act in solidarity with those who go without. Learn more, give alms, share what you have. Be conscious about what you eat.”

Good advice, I think. Particularly for this season of Lent. And I say that as a graduate of an elite, northeastern liberal arts college of Episcopal foundation, fully cognizant of my obligations to others less fortunate than myself, (however “paternalist” it may seem to some spectral Evangelicals Down Under.)

Sir, Andrea Dworkin couldn't have raved more ludicrously. Here's to refute: I don't live anywhere near the Southern Hemisphere. I'm not related to anyone who does. I've never been there. I don't work for anyone who does work there or with anyone there. I'm not an Evangelical but that doesn't mean that the sight of the Archdeacon of Hampstead Heath swinging his flaming purse makes me happy; I'm an atheist. And if you wanted to be "reminded" of your privilege and its responsibilities, get your private schools and colleges to admit-and graduate-students who are poor in the percentage such students make up in the general school age population; paternalism has very much had its day. Otherwise, you're just a waste of space and Mainline Protestantism will continue to be Something (Only)White People Like.

I'm not sure why 'Turnip Ghost' an obvious spectral vegetable enthusiast with no religious affiliation is actually doing here on A.D.U. I fear we give him too much attention, and he may just thrive on it.

As I'm sure my departure would help you restore what Mainline Protestantism,indeed all religions, wish for most devoutly: a tranquil, quiet echo chamber of the like-minded. A "flock"-coincidentally what clergy call their sheeple. "Father"? Bit of a pre-Raphaellite affectation there, isn't it? Ever ask the Catholics or Orthodox if THEY think you're a real priest?

Actually, yes. I remember attending a Trinity Institute session here in New York City some years a go, where a world-famous Jesuit scholar was asked exactly this question. His reply was that he, and all of the Jesuits he knew, fully recognized Anglican orders, and he thought the Roman hierarchy “very short sighted” for not formally doing so.

As to the Eastern Orthodox, several of their bishops have already (years ago) participated in the consecration of Anglican and Episcopal bishops, so the answer to your question is obvious.

Now, that does not mean that some Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox don’t have differences with Episcopalians regarding women’s ordination, openly gay bishops, etc. But the most progressive, educated elements certainly DO THINK that our priests are “real.”

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Anglican Down Under

Welcome to this blog on Anglican, theological, biblical and other matters, mostly missional or liturgical (but I reserve the right to write about cricket). It is grounded in some islands at the bottom of the world which, together with a large island to our west, constitute fabulous Down Under.

Sometimes I pursue such a fine centrist line that I annoy people on either side of the line. If you do not like being annoyed then you know what to do.

I work for the Diocese of Christchurch and for Theology House, Christchurch. Views expressed here are not necessarily the views of either organisation. But I harbour the hope that what I say here is helpful to those with whom I am in fellowship because of these two entities!

ACANZP

ACANZP stands for Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. In Aotearoa New Zealand this church is also known as Te Haahi Mihinare - The Missionary Church. (I work in ministry training and theological education in this church as Director of Education and Director of Theology House in the Diocese of Christchurch. Views expressed here are personal and not those of the Diocese, but the intent is not to express any personal views contradictory of the Diocese's).

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Followers

Pearls

Show us anything clearly set forth in Holy Scripture that we do not teach and we will teach it. Show us anything in our teaching or practice is clearly contrary to Holy Scripture, and we will abandon it.

Stephen Neill

For the glory of God is a human being fully alive, and the glory of humanity is the vision of God.

St Irenaeus

Fundamentally the Gospel is obsessed with the idea of the unity of human society.

Masure

We have returned to the Apostles and the old Catholic Fathers. We have planted no new religion, but only preserved the old that was undoubtedly founded and used by the Apostles of Christ and other holy Fathers of the Primitive Church.

Bishop Jewel

Preachers shall behave themselves modestly and soberly in every department of their life. But especially shall they see to it that they teach nothing in the way of a sermon, which they would have religiously held and believed by the people, save what is agreeable to the teaching of the Old or New Testament, and what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this selfsame doctrine.

Canon 6 from the 1571 Bishop’s Convocation

Kent: "See better, Lear, and let me still remain."

William Shakespeare

For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear. Wittgenstein

Justice is eternal, and doesn't depend at all on human conventions.

Montesquieu

The real challenge of Islam to Western intellectual discourse is for us to ask ourselves whether our unprecedented modern experiment of conducting political life with no transcendent values is really working out as well as we once hoped.

Harvey Cox

The long-term happiness of a society depends on how individuals behave towards each other, how families hold together, and how leaders keep the trust of people.

William Hague

Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.

John Neuhaus

To be an evangelical is not, first and foremost, about doctrinal correctness, but about a passion for the gospel of salvation from sin through Christ for eternity.

John Richardson

Neither may we ... lightly esteem what hath been allowed as fit in the judgement of antiquity, and by the long continued practice of the whole church; from which unnecessarily to swerve, experience hath never as yet found it safe.

Richard Hooker (Lawes, V.7.1)

The function of the Christian canon was to separate the apostolic witness from the ongoing tradition of the church, whose truth was continually in need of being tested by the apostolic faith.

Brevard S. Childs

Every word of God proves true. (Proverbs 30:5)

If the people of this religion are asked about the proof for the soundness of their religion, they flare up, get angry and spill the blood of whoever confronts them with this question. They forbid rational speculation, and strive to kill their adversaries. This is why truth became thoroughly silenced and concealed.

Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī

Something to think about

Given that, like it or not, much Anglican Communion trouble at root is about dispute over what the church should teach about homosexuality, two papers here may be helpful. They represent, in my view, some of the best arguments for and against setting aside or obeying Scripture's teaching. If only the authors were Anglican ...

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For people for whom NZ English is not their native tongue here are some translations of regular Maori words used here or in linked articles: Aotearoa: name for New Zealand; aroha: love; Ariki: lord; Atua: God; hui: gathering, assembly, conference; hui amorangi: regional area under leadership of regional bishop within Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa (Diocese of Aotearoa); kai: food; kai moana: sea food; Ihu: Jesus; iwi: tribe; Karaiti: Christ; Kotahitanga/Te Kotahitanga: within ACANZP, the council responsible for drawing together the hopes and aspirations of the three tikanga for theological education and ministry training and transforming them into policy and into recommendations to the St John's College Trust Board for expenditure of educational funds; also the Board of Governors of St John's College (the primary, but not the only object of SJCTB expenditure); koha: gift, responsive gift to hospitality offered; mana: power, respect, honour; marae: community meeting area, including meeting hall and dining room; mihi: speech; moana: sea, ocean; pihopa: bishop; pihopatanga: bishopric, diocese; powhiri: welcome ceremony; rangimarie: peace; tangata: people; tangi: funeral; taonga: treasure; tikanga: culture, cultural stream, within ACANZP: one of the three strands, Maori [Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa], Pakeha [NZ Dioceses], or Pasefika (Diocese of Polynesia) which make up our whole church under the authority of General Synod while being self-governing for many aspects of church life in each of the tikanga; waiata: song; wairua: spirit; Wairua Tapu: Holy Spirit; waka: canoe; whanau: family, extended family.